Also, against a technically sophisticated adversary such as the Russians or Chinese, the initial exchange of beyond visual range (BVR) missiles will most likely leave a number of aircraft alive. The Russian have the PAK FA stealth fighter in development and the Chinese J-37 stealth fighter had it's maiden flight last year. Stealth technology only makes it more likely that more aircraft survive the first volley. At typical combined closure speeds, there will be only one BVR exchange before ACM begins.
It's also very dangerous to be flying around the battlefield with your radar turned on as everyone else will immediately detect it and mark you as a target as you broadcast your range, speed, and bearing to the world. Typically target acquisition is by other means, such as AWACs aircraft or ground control that guides you into a high Probability Kill (PK) position.
They would paint a fake canopy on the underside of the Warthog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnielee/4105880397/. This was to make it hard to tell which way the airplane was turning.
> They would paint a fake canopy on the underside of the Warthog
I'd just hate that someone painted my exact location on the bottom of my plane so the enemy knows exactly where I'm sitting so they know exactly where to shoot at. I mean I'm sure everyone would know where the pilot is, but this would be like the Imperials painting a massive bullseye target around the ventilation tube on the Death Star.
This is true, now. In large part because the USAF dominates the air so thoroughly that opposing air is toast the day the war starts.
This may not always be so.
Apparently, there was a NATO exercise in Norway a couple of years ago where the US expected the same tactics to be used and hence to easily achieve air superiority. However, the opposing force moved their radar and missile systems around, used the terrain for cover, performed feinting maneuvers by giving the impression that the air defense systems were located in different locations and also obverved using mobile observers on the ground. Apparently, the US lost the air battle spectacularly.
Imagine a military conflict with an enemy that doesn't follow conventional doctrine like this. It's very hard to extrapolate from history how things are going to play out. A large-scale war with today's technology is going to look a lot different than the assymetric warfare the US currently seems to be optimizing for.
Without being too deeply informed on this subject, it seems to me like the US military refuses to acknowledge the weaknesses of its doctrine in a large-scale conflict against a sufficiently skilled and advanced adversary.
The F-22s had close to 200:1 kill to death ratios in most of the training exercises I've seen. Enemy aircraft are dead before they are even aware that an F-22 is in range.
It's more like the USAF never engages opponents that could really pose any threat. It's not very hard to achieve air supremacy against an enemy operating planes 20 years folder than yours. Which is fine in my book: you should pick your fights carefully.
Misleading camouflage helps you here.
Fighter camo is probably not that big thing, but all things concerned it just might give a little edge in some situation.
Fighters aren't going to handle the small arms fire like a Warthog will. So when you can't add the extra armour, it's probably worth making it harder to see.
History channel has some modern Pilots talking about dogfight speeds of mach .9, radar, and radar stealth (sending back scrambled radar messages) to enemy craft is the deciding factor in a dogfight:
Heat and contrail's.
Also, I suspect the best solution to deal with advancing US warplanes is simply a vary large low cost drone fleet. Picture that fight but replace the second squad with 10,000 drones each of which has a single air to air or air to ground missile. They don't even need to use radar with enough eyes you can just triangulate position's and distance.
Stealthy aircraft (i.e. virtually every fighter in development by Russia, China, or the West) are specifically designed to mask their heat signature, and contrails are solved by changing altitude.